Mrs. Dibenetto's Case Study

After that, this essay will discuss different impacts that are caused by this legislation. Firstly, the children removal issue is stilling happening among indigenous community, a large percentage of

“Where are they taking me, mom?! Help!” These were the screams of an Aboriginal child when he was dragged to a car that drove him away from his family. Aboriginal kids were forcefully abducted and placed at poorly built and equipped residential schools. Residential schools are a network of boarding schools for Indigenous peoples. Like a disease, these schools spread so fast on Canadian land. They were every Indigenous child’s nightmare. Kids who attended were traumatized due to the mental, physical, and sexual abuse they suffered. Canadians felt superior to Aboriginals which lead them to use their power excessively to civilize these communities. This issue is considered to be one of the darkest chapters in Canadian history. It has a significant impact on Aboriginal communities. Indians suffered a loss of culture and identity. This issue violates various human rights such as; Freedom of language, freedom of culture and religion, freedom of choice, and the freedom of safety and health. The two groups in this controversy are the aggressors; Canadian government, and it’s churches, and the victims; the aboriginals. The question is, is the Canadian government doing enough to make it up to those who suffered the ill effects of residential schools?

Knockwood explains the enforcement of residential ideologies as a “combination of physical intimidation and psychological manipulation which produced terror and confusion” (12). The premise of residential schools was to strip Indigenous children from their culture and Indigenous identity, forcing them to only speak English, or face severe consequences. Despite the government and churches best efforts, many Indigenous children still maintained their cultural roots and kept their language while at home. This governmental need for assimilation has had lasting impacts far beyond the scope of active residential schools. Neeganagwedgin notes, “while the schools may be physically closed, the legacy lingers” (34). Beyond this, she urges, present-day institutions still function in a way that continues to undermine and systematically deny, “Indigenous peoples their inherent rights as First Peoples” (Neeganagwedgin 34); such as the justice system, child welfare and the education systems.

The efficacy and implementation of the Northern Territory Intervention has received wide spread criticism due to the lack of prior consultation with the Indigenous Community leaders as well as the questionable reforms subsequently implemented. Amongst these reforms were the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA) (Korff, J, 2016) and forceful leasing of Indigenous land to the commonwealth as documented in The Northern Territory National Emergency Response Act, 2007 (Cth). The Northern Territory Intervention consequently has had numerous negative impacts on the community, “The intervention has had consequences that will have repercussions for generations” (Dodson, 2016)

We are learning that when genuine 'Indigenous' Justice is hiding under the cloak of Western paradigms, we continue to see the rising population of Indigenous peoples--especially Indigenous women--in prisons. Our programs and rehabilitative initiatives remain under Western paradigms, even when painted with the brush of 'restorative' or 'indigenous'

The National Inquiry into the separation of the children concluded that 'between one-in-three and one-in-ten Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families and communities in the period from approximately 1910 until 1970' (Wilkie, 1997). It was the 1960s, at the earliest, when the various 'protection' Acts were either abolished or discontinued.

The Indigenous culture was viewed as inferior and unable to adequately provide for the needs of their children, which was fully fuelled by disproportionate poverty rates as well as the repercussion of residential schools (Russell, 2015). Due to not being able to maintain the standards of European child-rearing practices and common values, social services workers attempted to rescue these children from the conditions they were living in (O’Connor, 2010). These issues have detrimental effects on the families of survivors of the residential schools for generations, also known as multigenerational trauma. Instead of addressing this social policy concern the government was contributing and controlling it, where Indigenous people had little power to address

Government policies authorising the removal of Aboriginal children have caused extensive and unrepairable damage to every aspect of Indigenous culture. It could be argued that the emotional turmoil which occurred as a result of this policy, is greater than any physical abused ever faced by the Australian Aboriginal people. The act of child removal would be a scarring experience for parents and children of any race or culture. This policy had a particularly damaging impact on the Indigenous people as their identity is based within a set of strong traditional guides and teachings. These lessons are not recorded, but can only be taught through speaking with elders and learning through a connection to others within the mob, connection to art forms

The CFCSA states in part 1, section 4, that “if a child is an aboriginal child, the importance of preserving the child’s cultural identity must be considered in determining the child’s best interest” (1996). In both cases, both youth had family members within their Indigenous culture that were willing to take them but due to unrelated circumstances these requests were not taken into consideration. The overrepresentation of Indigenous children in care is demonstrated here, where child protection workers are not equipped with the training or resources to adequately identify and address risk when dealing with Indigenous children. This is one of the recommendations within the TRC where “ensuring that social workers and others who conduct child

“These folks have been victimized twice. Once when their daughters, their sisters, their mothers have gone missing. And then, a second time when the justice system has utterly failed them in the pursuit of the justice they so rightly deserve. There can be no solution until we get to the truth in the heart of the matter, that this is a complex issue. The sources of this violence against Aboriginal women and girls is complex, but it… there’s no possibility of finding those solutions unless we actually have the truth on the table. And the resistance from this government time and time again, to have the courage and the leadership to approach this conversation and find that truth… is yet a third victimization of these families” (Pope C. & Smiley M., 2015)

For over a century, beginning in the mid1800s and continuing into the late 1990s, Aboriginal children in Canada were taken from their homes and communities, and were placed in institutions called residential schools. These schools were run by religious people in with the Canadian government and were attended by children as young as four years of age. These schools were all across Canada but sometimes very far from the children’s homes. Separated from their families and stopped from speaking their native languages and practicing their culture the majority of the 150,000 children who were sent to these schools experienced neglect and suffering.

In 1937 Conference of State and Federal Ministers of Native Welfare, the debate about the policy for indigenous people, the aboriginal issue has been divided into two populations, the ‘full-bloods’ and the ‘half castles’ (Hollinsworth, 1998). The first group was assumed would be die out eventually, and the second group can trained and absorbed into white family as a servant. In fact, Indigenous children kidnapping as servants was existed since European new arrival. And the removals and the blocking of return to Indigenous families was became common while the growth of ‘mix race’ people (Hollinsworth, 1998). In NSW, the legislation trying to remove the ‘mix race’ children from their family and placed them in foster care (Haebich 2000), while the prohibition of marriage and contact between racial categories has been legislated. Removed children are broken emotionally by told that their parent were dead out or abandoned them, and forced to neglect their own culture, as well as physically, as

The predominately Anglo-Saxon values present in the welfare system have resulted in a lack of understanding of Indigenous disadvantage as well as cultural values and traditions (Chenoweth & McAuliffe 2008). Chenoweth and McAuliffe (2008, p. 28) state that Indigenous populations have handed down by word of mouth, rather than writing down, their own ways of addressing these notions of “helping”, and this has resulted in a lack of understanding or an reluctance by human services organisations to attempt to understand them.

The ethical dilemma Mathew and I decided to write on was scenario three, where the mother left her daughter with an “unwilling caregiver” right after the father was incarcerated. In this case while the mother was pregnant with the girl, the mother used drugs, causing the baby to go through withdrawals after she was born. The daughter, Tonya, has now been in foster care for 19 months with the same family, and the mother was not able to be located. Now both her biological father and foster family have shown interest in wanting to keep Tonya, our ethical dilemma in this case is finding the best placement for Tonya in this situation. In this case we’re discussing prospective family reunification versus immediate permanency for Tonya. While Tonya is our main concern making this decision, we also have to consider the competency of the biological father and foster family.

Anna Haebich states in her article that the government believed that the removal policies were in the best interests of the Aboriginal children, particularly of mixed race. However, ‘Millicent’s Story’ and the confidential submissions from the ‘National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders from their Families’ contrasts this view. The children removed from their families suffered physical, mental, emotional and sexual abuse that affected them for life. They were placed in institutions or white households that were and had poor conditions; however, some were placed into loving households. The girl in ‘Millicent’s Story’ was forbidden to see her family, and told they no longer wanted her. Other children were told